


(you wanna be) high for this

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Season/Series 02, Sex Pollen, Ward x Simmons Winter, With A Twist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 02:24:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5988900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What do you say we spice things up?"</p><p>[For the <b>Under the Skin</b> theme at Ward x Simmons Winter.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	(you wanna be) high for this

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, writing is THE WORST. I've had this fic in my head, crystal clear, since this round's WSWinter prompts went up, but for some reason it was just SO HARD to turn into words. *shakes fist* Finally, though, I am triumphant!
> 
> I have also severely neglected my school work to write this, so it'll probably be another couple of days before I catch up on comment replies! I'm so sorry!
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

The rattle of the balcony door sliding open rouses Grant from his light doze, and he rolls onto his side to watch as Jemma creeps back into the room. Focused on closing the door quietly behind her, she’s not looking at him, and he takes a minute to drink her in—to enjoy the drape of his shirt over her shoulders and her lovely bare legs and even the half-guilty expression on her face.

Then he asks, “How’s the team?” and smiles fondly as she jumps and whirls to face him.

“You’re awake!” she says, trying for a bright smile—only for it to fade immediately into a sheepish kind of resignation. “I suppose it was too much to hope I could hide it from you.”

“ _Way_ too much,” he agrees. Before, he would have teased her about how completely _not_ sneaky she is; now, he just moves on. “So? How are things at the Playground?”

“Fine,” she says. “Very busy, but fine.”

She strips off his shirt, leaving her in the tiny little tank top she slept in (god _damn_ did he miss the sight of her in those tops—and, of course, in even less), and drops it where she stands. Her phone she places more gently, setting it down on the dresser next to his wallet.

Then she plops down on the edge of the bed, and he moves with the slight bounce of the mattress, using it to shift closer to her. He comes to rest next to her leg, which she’s pulled half onto the bed, and frowns at the chill to her skin. He woke up when she first left the bed, so he knows she wasn’t out on the balcony long; it must be pretty cold outside.

Before he can poke at her for going out there without a jacket (or _pants_ , for that matter), though, she clears her throat.

“I think Coulson was a little hurt,” she says, watching him carefully, “that it wasn’t you calling.”

“Was he.”

She bites her lip at his tone, but she’s smart enough not to push. They’ve got a lot to work out, him and Coulson, and it won’t be happening until Grant has the chance to cool off. He might be steaming mad right now, ready to tear Coulson to pieces, but intellectually he knows that if he does anything stupid, he’ll regret it sooner or later. Coulson’s the closest thing he’s ever had to a real father, and Grant doesn’t _want_ to hurt him. He just needs time to regain his balance before they hash things out.

“Anyway. No problems with the team?” he checks.

“None,” she confirms.

“In that case,” he says, “how about I help you get warm?”

She giggles as he tugs her down on top of him, and the sound and the weight of her ease some of the tension knotting his spine.

It’s been nearly two weeks, but he’s still having some trouble accepting that he’s got her back.

“Actually, I have some thoughts about that.” She settles herself more comfortably over him. “What do you say we spice things up?”

He raises his eyebrows. “You think we need spicing up? Should I be offended?”

“Not at all!” she says hurriedly—and honestly. Good. “I just thought some…experimentation would be nice.”

He can’t help but smile. You can take the scientist out of the lab…

“Sexy experimentation?” he asks.

“Oh, very,” she promises.

Even though she _looks_ sincere enough, there’s something about her too-innocent tone that leaves him on edge. They’ve done some _experimenting_ in the bedroom before, and it was a hell of a good time, but somehow, he doesn’t think she’s talking about exploring new kinks.

“Why don’t you lay out exactly what kind of experimentation you’ve got in mind?” he suggests.

“Yes, right,” she says, and sits back on his thighs. “While I was undercover—wait, wait! _Listen_ ,” she insists as he shoots upright.

“I _don’t_ want to talk about HYDRA,” he says harshly.

He doesn’t even wanna _think_ about it. Jemma going undercover with HYDRA isn’t just a sore spot, it’s a still-bleeding wound. She’s a terrible liar with absolutely no training, and she spent _months_ putting herself at risk while he had no fucking clue.

So damn many things could’ve gone wrong there—he could have lost her so many ways—and it takes all of his strength not to dwell on them every second of every day. Talking about it only makes that harder.

And if something happened at HYDRA that gave her ideas for their sex life? He sure as fuck doesn’t wanna know _that_.

“I know you don’t,” Jemma sighs, tone caught somewhere between exasperated and apologetic. “And you don’t have to. Just _listen_.”

She’s wearing that mulish expression that means he’s gonna hear this whether he wants to or not, so he gives a sigh of his own and settles back against his pillow, deciding to give the fight a miss.

“Fine,” he says. “What.”

“While I was undercover,” she starts again, “in the course of my work, I stumbled across something…unexpected. Well, I say _stumbled across_ ; really, I invented it. Accidentally.”

“Okay…?”

“I’ll spare you the technical details,” she says, a hint of _how am I in love with someone incapable of appreciating the beauty of my work_ creeping into her tone. He’s heard _that_ lecture at least a hundred times, and the familiarity is enough to make him smile, despite the HYDRA talk. “In short, I managed to—again, completely accidentally—fabricate a very powerful aphrodisiac.”

Wait, what? “An _aphrodisiac_? Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she says. “It increases desire, stamina, and sensitivity, drastically shortens the refractory period, and, in general, significantly enhances the sexual experience.” She pauses. “Or at least it should.”

Oh, boy. That’s a totally different kind of familiar tone.

“Should?” he echoes suspiciously.

“Well it’s not as though I could properly _test_ it,” she says defensively. “I erased it from all of my records at HYDRA, of course, and though I was able to recreate it at the Playground, my ability to observe its effects were somewhat limited. I tested it as well as I could, but as there are no living, breathing humans on which to run trials, I’m left mostly with supposition.”

“So lemme get this straight,” he says, voice heavy with disbelief. “You want us to take a drug you’ve never tested on people before? You want _us_ to act as your test subjects?”

“Well, yes,” she admits. Then, obviously seeing the _fuck, no_ he’s about to say written on his face, she adds, “It’s perfectly safe! Even _if_ it doesn’t act as I believe it will, it won’t cause us any harm.”

Uh huh.

“Wasn’t experimenting on himself how Bruce Banner ended up the Hulk?” he asks.

“That is _not_ going to happen,” she says firmly.

“You can promise that?” he presses. “You’re one hundred percent sure?”

She hesitates.

“ _Jemma_.”

“Considering everything that’s happened in the past few years, I’m reluctant to call _anything_ completely impossible—short of magic, of course,” she adds hastily.

“Of course,” he agrees solemnly.

“However,” she continues, ignoring him, “I _can_ say with ninety-nine percent certainty that we will not gain any sort of superpowers from this aphrodisiac. I consider it highly, highly, _highly_ unlikely that we will suffer any harm at all.”

That’s still not a definite _no_.

“But you can’t promise it,” he says, and waits for her to (reluctantly) shake her head. “So why are you willing to take the risk?”

“Because I am _dying_ of curiosity,” she says dramatically, slumping on top of him. “Ever since I realized what I’d made, I’ve wanted to _know_. To feel it.”

“Poor Jemma.” He smiles into her hair, rubbing his hand up her back. “You just can’t stand not knowing things, can you?”

She shakes her head against his shoulder, then shifts to press a kiss to the hickey she left at the base of his neck two nights ago.

“I dreamt about it,” she murmurs, “in HYDRA. About _you_ —about what we could do with this.”

Her hand steals to the waistband of his sweats, thumb slipping under to rub along his hip bone, and he sucks in a sharp breath.

“Please?” she asks quietly. Her breath feathers over his neck, causing him to stir. “For me?”

It takes him a second to recover from the plea. He’s been hard since he woke up, and this sure as hell isn’t helping any, Jemma on top of him with her breathy whispers and her soft, now-warm skin. Of course, he’s pretty much in a constant state of desire these days. Ever since he got her back, it’s been a struggle not to bury himself inside her every time he sees her.

As soon as he gets over his initial reaction, though, he laughs and rolls them to the side, pinning her under him in the middle of the bed.

“Now why am I having flashbacks to that time Kathy Hart offered me a cigarette?” he muses.

Jemma smiles sheepishly. “Too much?”

“Just a bit.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, arms wrapping loosely around his waist. “I don’t mean to pressure you. We don’t have to try it if you don’t want to; I can live with my curiosity.”

He studies her face. All joking aside, it’s not like Jemma to be reckless with their—well, with _his_ —safety. If she’s even suggesting this, it means she’s _very_ confident that it won’t hurt them.

And hell, what’s life without a little risk, anyway?

“Okay,” he says. “I’m game.”

“Really?” Jemma asks, brightening.

“Really,” he says. “I’m guessing you brought this stuff with you?”

“I did!” She shoves at his shoulder, and he obligingly moves off of her so she can scramble off the bed. “Also, a camera.”

“A—you wanna make a sex tape?” _That’s_ definitely new. “Didn’t we swear an oath when we realized how easy it was for Skye to get into encrypted networks that we would never, ever take any kind of naughty photos or videos?”

“We did,” she admits, without pausing in digging through one of her suitcases. “But this is for _science_ , Grant! I can hardly stop mid-sex to document my observations!”

Yeah, he’s gotta admit that sounds pretty ridiculous. Not to mention frustrating.

“Still,” he says.

“I promise, as soon as I’ve watched the video back and recorded my observations—on _paper_ —I will delete it.”

“Hey, I don’t mind,” he says…which is kind of a lie. He doesn’t mind people seeing _him_ have sex—modesty was pretty much drummed out of him in military school, and if it wasn’t, ten years with SHIELD would’ve done the trick—but he doesn’t want anyone else seeing Jemma naked. At all.

But that’s his unreasonable, over-possessive ass of a caveman side speaking. In the end, it’s Jemma’s body and her decision who does and doesn’t get to see it, and he has to respect that. If she wants to make and even keep a sex tape, he’ll let her.

(And then possibly— _probably_ —kick the ass of anyone who watches it. With extreme prejudice.)

“You wanna keep the tape, it’s fine with me,” he says. “But I’m gonna reserve the right to say I told you so.”

She gives him an absent smile as she arranges a tripod a few feet from the end of the bed. “Noted.”

That settled, he sits back against the headboard and watches her bustle around. She’s got an actual video camera, which she sets up on the tripod and spends at least three minutes angling properly. Then, after pulling the blinds across the sliding doors to the balcony, she goes around the room turning lamps on and off, muttering about lighting.

“This is starting to feel less like a sex tape and more like a porno,” Grant tells her. She only rolls her eyes.

Finally, she’s satisfied with the filming set-up, and returns to her suitcase to fetch a small, zippered travel case.

“You’re absolutely certain about this?” she asks.

Hey, you only live once, right? “Yep.”

“Excellent,” she says happily, and perches on the end of the bed. “Arm, please.”

He holds it out, and she pulls a hypodermic needle and a little bottle out of her case.

“I want to wait until the drug actually kicks in to begin having sex,” she tells him as she prepares the shot. “That way I’ll know by the timestamp on the video how long it took to take effect.”

“Makes sense,” he says, and watches curiously as she sticks him with the needle. It feels—and looks—just like every other shot he’s ever had. “What do you wanna do in the meantime? Scrabble?”

She laughs as she gets out another needle. “I don’t think we need to go _that_ far.”

Once she’s given herself the drug, she returns the needles and the bottles to the case and sets it on the nightstand. Then she crawls across the bed to straddle his lap, looping her arms around his neck as her knees settle on either side of him.

“A bit of snogging should fill the time nicely,” she says, and punctuates it with a kiss.

He returns the kiss willingly, wrapping an arm around her waist to tug her a little closer even as he slides his other hand into her hair to angle her head just right. She tastes sweet, like the little hard candies she snacks on when she’s got a problem to solve, and her mouth is warm and familiar.

It’s been a while since he kissed her like this, slow and sensual instead of urgent. Ever since she got back, he can barely keep his hands off of her, and kissing never stays just kissing for long. He almost forgot how nice it can be to just…make out like teenagers.

Not that there _isn’t_ any urgency. Having Jemma in his lap, shifting on top of him when there’s nothing but a few layers of fabric separating them, induces plenty of it, urgency and desperation and all that good stuff that’s left both of them covered in bruises every time they’ve had sex for the last two weeks. (Which, for the record? They’ve had a _lot_ of sex.) Still, it’s bearable.

Until, suddenly, it isn’t.

Jemma’s nails scrape lightly against the nape of his neck, nothing she hasn’t done a dozen times already today, but this time it zings straight to his cock, and it’s like it wakes his whole body up along the way. His skin burns, every nerve standing on edge, and he knows he needs to be inside of her _right now_.

He tightens his grip on her waist and, without breaking the kiss, shifts them both, pushing up to his knees and then following the motion through until she’s pinned beneath him. They’re lying the wrong way on the bed and one of his feet knocks painfully against the headboard, but he doesn’t give a fuck about that—about _anything_ other than the frenzied need building higher by the second.

His lungs are burning just like his skin, and he breaks the kiss (reluctantly) even as he shoves impatiently at his sweats. (And why the fucking hell he didn’t take them off before he let her drug him—)

Jemma’s eyes, wide and startled, give him pause—or at least as much of it as he can manage.

It hasn’t hit her yet, he can see that clear on her face. If she wants to wait—

“I need to—can I—?” He can’t even get the words out, not when it’s taking all of his efforts to remember that he _needs_ to, that this is important, that he’s gonna die if he doesn’t fuck her right this instant but that doesn’t matter if she doesn’t—

“Yes,” she says hurriedly, “yes, yes, go ahead—”

He doesn’t have the patience to remove her panties, just rips them right off of her, and the way her chest jumps with the breath she sucks in at the snap of the elastic doesn’t help him a bit. He has the presence of mind (barely) to check, to make sure she’s ready for him (although fuck knows what he’d do if she wasn’t), and she _is_ , thank fucking god—

One quick thrust and he’s inside her, and even as she cries out, he’s coming, so hard his vision goes white.

For half a beat of his racing heart, he’s embarrassed (so much for increased stamina; he’s never come that fast in his life), and then Jemma shifts beneath him. Just like that, he’s hard again, and he loses every thought that isn’t her—her cunt, warm and wet around him, her mouth swollen from his kiss, her chest heaving against his, her hands soft on his back; she’s his, every inch of her is his, and he’s not letting go again.

He fucks her fast and deep, rubbing at her clit with the fingers of one hand while he yanks her top down with the other so he can bite and suck at her breasts—so he can enjoy her soft skin and her helpless whimpering and the way redness blooms across her chest in the wake of his mouth—and she squirms underneath him, taking little gasping breaths with every thrust. Her cunt clenches around him, urging him deeper, while her knees squeeze at his hips so tightly it’s actually painful.

It’s still not enough.

So he fucks her harder, abandons her top to slip a hand beneath her and push her up, a little, angling her just right—and then she’s coming, bucking and sobbing his name, and he follows her right over the edge.

He’s soft for all of a nanosecond until she shudders with the aftershocks of her orgasm and brings his erection right back.

For a second, he hesitates, torn between desperation and love—that wasn’t enough, he needs more, he needs _so much_ more, he _can’t_ stop, but he knows how sensitive she gets after an orgasm, knows that if he keeps going he’ll only hurt her—but he’s spared making a decision when the drug finally hits her.

He can literally _see_ the exact second it takes effect—how her eyes go glassy even as the soothing hands she’s been running up and down his back become abruptly demanding.

“ _Move_ ,” she orders, hips rocking up into his, “Grant, move!”

So he does.

Time and thought slip away from him as he gets lost in it, and for what has to be hours, all he knows is Jemma—soft skin and wet heat and demanding kiss and sharp nails—and the tight pressure of need. They fuck again and again, Jemma beneath him and on top of him and beside him, and one orgasm melds into another and another and another.

The last round is the—best? worst?—well, it’s the last.

He’s on his side, pressed chest-to-back with Jemma, one of her legs slung back over his thigh as he fucks her from behind. He’s starting to realize he’s hurting—little aches creeping in at the edge of his awareness—and he can’t get as much leverage like this anyway, so it’s slower this time—slower than it’s been so far—but it’s still good, her body welcoming him in while his fingers slip on her clit.

He can feel her orgasm approaching in the way she squirms against him, the way her muscles constrict around him while her breathing takes on a higher pitch. She’s got an arm twisted back to grip his shoulder, and her nails dig in deep as she pleads for more in a completely wrecked voice.

A pinch to her clit does the trick for _both_ of them; as she tightens around him as she comes, and it brings his own orgasm on fast. It hits so hard it _hurts_ , and the cry he muffles in the curve of her neck is more pain than pleasure. As she comes down, her cunt flutters around him, and that hurts, too, every bit of contact like an iron searing his cock.

Also painful is the hammering of his heart against his ribs and the deep, gasping breaths he’s sucking in. And his hips—fuck, his hips ache like he’s dislocated both his legs—and his arms and…everything. Literally everything is sore, from his scalp to his toes.

God, he’s exhausted.

“Ow,” he says—and yep, there’s another thing that hurts: his throat is _killing_ him.

“Quite,” Jemma agrees, and he winces (also painful) at just how bad her voice is. It’s barely a squeak, not that that’s a surprise, what with how she’s been screaming. “I believe the drug has run its course.”

“Yeah.”

The absolute last thing he wants to do is move, but she’s still throbbing around him, and it kind of makes him want to cry. So, after a deep breath to steel himself, he slides out of her—she whimpers—and rolls onto his back, hoping to ease some of the ache in his side.

Doesn’t work—and neither does Jemma rolling onto her stomach, if her quiet whine is any indication.

For a while, they lie there in silence, their heavy breathing and the hum of the air conditioner the only sounds in the room. Eventually, though, Jemma turns her head to look at him.

“Well,” she rasps, “I’d call that experiment a smashing success.”

Laughing, unsurprisingly, also hurts, but Grant does it anyway.

“Hell, yeah,” he says.

His entire body is in screaming pain. He’s exhausted and, now that he thinks about it, absolutely dying of thirst and also seriously starving.

But damn if he wouldn’t do it all again, because that sex was fucking _unbelievable_. They’ve always been incredible together, but that—that was on a whole new level.

Jemma shifts a little, then winces.

“I feel _disgusting_ ,” she says, and gives him a beseeching look. “I’ll love you forever if you carry me to the tub.”

He’s feeling pretty disgusting, too, but moving at all, let alone carrying her, just…does not sound fun.

“And if I don’t?” he asks.

“I’ll still love you forever,” she allows. “But I’ll be very, very sad.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” he says, even as he drags himself out of bed. It hurts—god _damn_ does it hurt—but it’s not like he’s a stranger to hurting, and at least earning this pain was enjoyable. “Emotional blackmail. I’d like to remind you this was _your_ idea.”

“I regret nothing,” she says, and cuddles into him as he lifts her into his arms. “Although perhaps next time a slightly lower dose would be wise.”

“You think?”

This is a seriously high-class hotel, the five-star kind that comes with a bathroom bigger than Jemma’s old lab on the Bus. It’s got a jacuzzi tub the size of a small swimming pool _and_ a separate shower, and though the former is tempting, he heads for the latter. A nice soak will do them and their aching (and probably strained) muscles a world of good, but that can wait 'til later. Right now, the goal is to get clean.

Their shower is quick, because standing isn’t fun and soaping up even less so, but it’s long enough for Grant to get a good look at Jemma—at the bites and hickies and bruises he left all over her. He’s got plenty of his own, of course, but what he gave her was just…excessive.

He can very vaguely remember thinking things about her belonging to him, about the importance of making sure she knew it, and the drive to mark her so that no one else would even _think_ of touching her. He wonders if that was a side effect of the drug, or if it’s down to him and his lingering issues over her departure from the Playground.

Either way, she’s definitely gonna be feeling those for a while, and as she shuts the water off, he brushes his fingers over the bruises blooming on her right hip. They’re gonna be a lot darker—and likely a lot more painful—than any of the others he’s given her over the past two weeks. Chances are it's not just muscle strain that's got her moving so tenderly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, throat tight with more than pain.

Jemma beams up at him. “I’m not.”

“No?” he asks.

“No.” She kisses the skin over his heart. “And even if I did mind, it would hardly be your fault. I should thank you for indulging me.”

He doesn’t exactly agree with that perspective, but he’s just way too wiped to hash it out now. That’s a discussion that can wait ‘til later, he thinks; for now, he’ll just let the knowledge that she’s not upset lighten his heart a little.

Instead, he says, “I’d say any time, but…”

“This isn’t the sort of thing to use every night,” she agrees. “We’ll save it for special occasions.” She pauses, then brightens. “It’s a sometimes drug! Like cheesecake: everything in moderation.”

Sometimes he really has no idea how her brain works. “Uh huh.”

“I’m very tired,” she adds, a little pathetically, at his skeptical expression.

“Tell me about it,” he says, and nudges her towards the door. “Come on. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“God, yes,” she says.

As he follows her back into the room, Grant adds the screaming that wrecked her voice to the sheer number of rounds they went and comes up with _very_ unhappy neighbors. The walls in this place are pretty thick, sure, but they’re not _soundproof_ ; they’ve probably caused a lot of complaints in the last several hours. Combined with the state of their bed…

“Dibs on _not_ calling room service,” he says, and not even her poutiest look can make him take that back.

It was _her_ drug; as far as he’s concerned, it’s only fair if she’s the one who has to deal with the awkward fall-out.


End file.
